Yngwie Style Bending

Hi and welcome to my new beginner lesson in the style of Yngwie Malmsteen. I wanted to focus on an overlooked element of Yngwie's playing and that is his bending. Or, more specifically, his direct bends that go straight to the note with little in between. What do I mean?

Well, when we play a bend we usually pick the string and then bend it up to the note but the tones in between the start note note and the end note are usually audible as a gradual climbing sensation from one tone to another.

However, many players, specifically Yngwie, love to be very direct with their bending and can pick one note and bend it to another note almost immediately without the tones in between being heard. This takes a lot of practise but is very attainable if you work at it. The hardest thing is being able to accuractely predict the right amount of "push" you need to give the string in order not to be over or under the desired pitch.

So physically it's not particularly hard but it does require a lot of trial and error.

The resulting sound of it is very effective and emotive, especially if combined with vibrato.

If you need some help with vibrato, please look to my lessons here and here.


So, you know what to do by now. Watch the lesson and grab that guitar!

Tuning:
E A D G B E - Standard Tuning
Tempo:
90bpm
Key:
Dm
Gear:
Ibanez RG7421, Overloud TH3, Cubase, Superior Drummer 2
Scales: